Dead Man's Hand
by burnmedown
Summary: A collection of episode tags for 2x17 and 2x18. Chapter 4: Sonny just needs to see him. Even just once would be okay.
1. Chapter 1

Clay's shoes are gone.

For whatever reason, that's the first thing Sonny notices, and also the thing that will stick in his memory the most clearly after it's all over.

Clay is lying on his back in the street and he's not wearing shoes. His lips are moving, but Sonny can't tell what he's trying to say. He keeps blinking his eyes. Open. Closed. Open.

Closed.

He's got shrapnel in his leg and there's blood everywhere and he's not wearing shoes. Two minutes ago, Clay shoved a kid he'd rescued into Sonny's arms and confidently said everything would be okay, and now he's in the street dying, and _his fucking shoes are gone._

"Breathe, Clay," Sonny keeps saying, stupidly, like it's a damn spell he can cast to make the kid stay alive. "Keep your eyes open. Stay with me. You're gonna be okay. Breathe. Just breathe."

Spenser doesn't answer. Doesn't show any signs of recognition; doesn't react when they press down on his leg, even though a wound like that should hurt like hell. Just keeps blinking slowly at the sky.

There's an ambulance, and a flurry of frantic motion, and then Spenser is just gone. Then there are other victims to tend to, other wounds to bandage. Sonny has a job to do and he's damn good at it, so he shoves Clay into a box in the corner of his mind, saving the worry for later.

Jason is with him. Jason will take care of him. Sonny has to help take care of everybody who hasn't made it into an ambulance yet.

Hours later, when they finally make it to the hospital, there's still no news. Now that there are no tasks left to do, the adrenaline is wearing off, leaving Sonny so exhausted his head droops. He rests his forehead on hands that feel empty and purposeless.

He won't sleep. Not till he knows.

The news, when it comes, is written all over Blackburn's face. Critical condition. Traumatic injuries. Severe bleeding. They haven't lost Clay yet, but they might still.

And he's been airlifted back to the States. He's gone. They can't see him, not for God knows how long.

A strange sense of vertigo washes over Sonny, because Clay was fine, and then he was in the street bleeding with no shoes on, and now he's been taken away to a place where he will be alone. Everyone Clay Spenser is close to is here, and he's not, and none of it makes any sense. Who in the States is gonna sit with him, talk to him, hold his hand? Not his asshole dad, that's for damn sure.

It wasn't supposed to happen like this.

_Black aces over eights. Dead man's hand._

Sonny wants to punch a wall until his hand shatters. He doesn't. He needs to be able to pull a trigger.

Mandy will find the name. She'll give it to them first. And when she does, there will be a reckoning.


	2. Chapter 2

The instant Davis answers, Sonny's throat closes up tight and all of a sudden he can't talk.

"Sonny?" She sounds worried. "You okay? Tell me you're okay."

He has to clear his throat twice before he can get the words out. "I ain't hurt any."

"What happened?" Lisa's tone is uncharacteristically soft. It makes Sonny's breath catch. He wants to bust into tears like a little kid.

"There was a bomb went off at the bar we were in. Tore up a lot of people, but we all came through okay. We were working on triaging, and Clay kept going out to the street, bringing people in. Handed off a couple kids to me and went back out."

He closes his eyes, puts his hand over them. He is an elite tier one operator and he will not cry, goddammit.

Lisa listens. All he hears is her soft breathing as she waits for him to get himself together.

"Reckon I knew, soon as I heard the second bomb go off."

Now Davis's breath hitches.

"When we found Clay," Sonny says, "his goddamn shoes were missing. He was- he was so close to the blast that it took 'em clean off."

"Oh, God," Lisa breathes. "So he's- is he…"

"Still alive, last we heard. They took him back to the States. Said they couldn't treat him here." He clears his throat again. "His legs were … it was real bad, Lisa. And I keep thinkin' about how he's all by himself now. Ain't nobody waitin' for him stateside."

"He's tough, Sonny," Davis says firmly. "You know that. If anybody's stubborn enough to pull through…"

"I know." He does. Clay is strong as hell. He's a fighter through and through. That's the part that keeps eating at Sonny, though. The kid lying in the street with no shoes on? He didn't look like a fighter. He looked already gone.

"He had his eyes open," Sonny says. "I tried to talk to him, but I don't think he heard me. Didn't even look like he recognized us."

"Explosion like that, he was bound to be in shock." Lisa's voice has gone back to gentle. "Give him time. He'll come out of it. When he does, they're gonna have to tie him down to keep him from trying to get up too soon."

Sonny laughs, but it's choked and half-hearted. He can't reconcile that Clay, the one Davis knows, the one _he_ knew, with the silent, dying Clay bleeding on the pavement in his sock feet. He's not sure he'll be able to until he sees Clay being himself again.

If that ever happens.

He tries to pull himself out of his own head, remembering that something was off with Davis even before the bomb. "Hey," he says. "You okay?"

"Yeah. I will be." Lisa's voice is solid steel now. "Clay's not the only one who's a fighter."

Now Sonny smiles, a real smile, for the first time since the first bomb went off. "Damn straight."

"Listen, Sonny, I got to go. Call me if you hear any updates on Clay. And take care of yourself, okay?"

"I will. You take care of yourself too, Lisa."

After hanging up, Sonny sits for a minute, staring at the floor. Then he gets up and tries to figure out what the hell he's gonna do with himself until Mandy finds somebody to aim him at.


	3. Chapter 3

Naima is stressed and exhausted, so her voice is a little sharper than intended when she says, "Hello?"

For a few seconds, there's silence on the other end of the line. Naima is about to hang up, thinking it's a scam call, when a woman's voice says tentatively, "Naima?"

Her brain is so fuzzy that it takes her a few seconds to figure out why the voice sounds familiar. "Stella?"

"Yeah." Stella sounds shaky, unsettled. "Um, I'm sorry. I know I don't have any right to be calling you, or … to be a part of any of this anymore, but, um, I dropped by Bayville Coffee this morning, and the owner told me she had heard about Clay and that she was sorry."

Naima closes her eyes and lets out a slow breath. Stella told Clay that she broke up with him not because she didn't care about him, but because she couldn't handle his life. From the way Stella sounds now, Naima figures that was the truth.

"Naima?" Stella is obviously on the verge of tears. "What was she sorry about?"

"He's still alive," Naima says, because that's what she would need someone to lead with if the conversation was about Ray. "He's in pretty bad shape, though."

Stella takes a sharp breath: maybe of relief that Clay is alive, or horror that this isn't all just a big misunderstanding. "Can you tell me anything about how it happened?"

"Have you seen the news about what happened in the Philippines?"

"Oh my God," Stella breathes. "He was there?"

"They all were. The initial explosion hit the bar Bravo was in. None of them were injured in the first blast, but Clay was out trying to help the casualties when the second bomb went off."

"Of course he was," Stella says softly.

Naima smiles a little. Stella and Clay might not be together anymore, but she will know his hero complex as well as anyone. "Clay helped save a lot of people, and then his team saved him. They got to him quickly or he wouldn't have made it to the hospital."

"Is he going to recover?" Stella sounds like she's starting to pull herself together. Maybe the reminder that Clay's team has his back has helped with that.

Naima hesitates just a little too long, hears a sucked-in breath on the other end of the line. "We don't know yet. He's still critical, and the damage to his legs is pretty bad."

"Okay. Thank you for telling me." There's a pause that lingers long enough to become awkward, and then Stella says, "Naima-"

"I'll text you if anything changes."

"Thank you," Stella whispers. Just when Naima thinks she's going to end the call, she adds, "Look, I'm not asking to see him or anything. I know that's a bad idea. But if there's anything … if you need someone to pick up groceries or…"

"I'll let you know," Naima says. She won't. They've got it covered, and Stella needs to untangle herself from Clay's world if either of them is ever going to finish moving on.

Needing to at least know if he's alive, though? Well, Naima can't begrudge her that. It isn't easy to just stop caring about someone who was that big a part of your life.

It's compassion that makes her add, "Listen, Clay is tough, okay? And we've got him. We'll take care of him."

"I know you will. Thanks, Naima."

After the call ends, Naima rests her forehead against the door frame, then looks back toward the bed where Clay lies ashen and still, a mess of tubes and bandages.

It would be a lot easier to believe the optimistic words she just said to Stella if only he would open his eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

It's been a goddamn _month,_ and Sonny's brain will not stop tormenting him about what the hell 'stable' is supposed to mean.

Does it just mean 'not likely to die'? Does it mean 'he's still got his legs'? Is Clay up? Can he carry on conversations? Because he sure as hell doesn't seem to want to talk to his team.

When Sonny closes his eyes to try to go to sleep at night, half the time he still sees flashes of the blood, the shrapnel, the drifting gaze that couldn't focus on him. The damn sock feet. It's the last glimpse he had of his brother and it's been a _month_ and he doesn't understand why Clay won't just talk to him.

He just needs to see him. Even just once would be okay. He just needs to replace that mental image with the _real_ Clay, the cocky golden boy who always has his back.

Once Mandy finally, _finally_ finds somebody to aim them at, the mission does help. It gives Sonny something to focus on, something that matters, and afterward he has the satisfaction of knowing they took down the people who hurt their boy.

And then. Then they're at the bar, and his phone rings, and it's Clay.

His heart like to jumps out of his chest, but he manages to sound casual when he answers.

Soon as Clay's face pops up on screen, another odd feeling of vertigo washes over Sonny, but in a good way this time, because the kid looks … fine.

He's home, sitting on his bed, wearing his baseball cap backward. He's smiling and alert. There's no blood, no visible scars, nothing. He looks like he could jump up and start running hills.

He looks like the bomb never happened, like they never had to fight so damn hard just to keep him breathing until he could get to a hospital.

Sonny knows it's an illusion, that Clay was hurt too bad to be healed up by now, that he must still have a long way to go, but the band that's been constricting his lungs for the last month starts to loosen up anyway.

Davis said Spenser was strong, that he was a fighter. Seeing his brother looking like himself again, Sonny finally knows, soul-deep, that that's the truth.

It'll take time, but Clay will come back to them. He won't give up till he's back home where he belongs.


End file.
